Brewers Arms, 79 Newport Street

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In 1851, William Whitfield was listed a brewer living in Newport Street, next to Back Newport Street on the stretch between Great Moor Street and Trinity Street. William was a brewer and when he converted part of his home into a beerhouse he gave it the name the Brewers Arms.

This appears to have been later in the 1850s. The pub doesn’t appear on an 1853 list of beerhouses, but it was being used as such by 1861. Whitfield was living there in 1861 with his wife, Catharine, two daughters and a grand-daughter. Later that decade – though six years apart - the two daughters, Hannah and Jane, each married one of the Almond brothers, Lawrence and John.

The Brewers Arms was close to the Newtown area of Bolton. The district was situated where the Morrisons supermarket now stands and was home to Bolton’s Irish community, but while the Brewers Arms was considered a rough pub it was popular with local railway workers. In 1869, an incident at the Brewers Arms led to the death of an Irish labourer, John Heyes. A man named Henry Horrocks, with whom Heyes had been drinking, was found guilty of manslaughter but was ordered to be bound over to the court for the sum of £20. [1]

William Whitfield died in 1872 and he was succeeded by Joseph Turton. The pub then began to sell beers from John Halliwell’s Alexandra Brewery on Mount Street and it was a Halliwell’s pub when it closed in 1908. [2]

The building was subsequently used as a branch of the Royal Liver Friendly Society but it was demolished in the 1950s. A new building was erected in its place which was taken over initially by Battersby’s department store who were previously further down Newport Street close to the town hall. Battersby’s were succeeded Whelan’s supermarket, owned by Dave Whelan the future chairman of Wigan Athletic. After the takeover of Whelan's in 1978 it became a branch of Morrison’s, followed by Kwik Save, Iceland and B&M Bargains. This successor building to the Brewers Arms was demolished in 2014 to make way for the new bus-rail interchange.

[1] The full story of the death is told in MurderousBolton, by Steve Fielding (2009). 

[2] Bolton Pubs, 1800 – 2000, by Gordon Readyhough. Published by Neil Richardson (2000). 

Newport Street at is junction with Back Newport Street pictured in 2012 (copyright Google Street View).

Bee Hive, 51 Back Derby Street

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The term ‘back street pub’ is normally used for pubs off the main road, but the Bee Hive really was in a back street. Its address was 51 Back Derby Street but it was actually an end terrace on Milk Street. Part of the property had been converted into a pub and was given its own entrance in Back Derby Street. The licensees and their families actually lived in another part of the same property, 2 Milk Street.

The pub dated back to the 1840s when a labourer named Henry Ashton opened up part of his home in Milk Street as a beerhouse. He was succeeded as landlord on his death in 1864 by his second wife Ann Ashton, with his son James Ashton working in the pub’s brewery.

The Ashtons were succeeded in the 1870s by the Reddy family: Martin Reddy and wife Mary. Martin Reddy died in 1888 and he was succeeded by his wife, Mary and when she died in 1899 by their daughter, also named Mary.

The Bee Hive became a Magees house. It closed in 1936 and the property was converted back into a private residence where the younger Mary Reddy lived until her death in 1957. It was demolished in the early-1960s, along with part of Milk Street. The rest of the area was pulled down in the early-seventies.

Faringdon Walk was built on the site of Milk Street. Back Derby Street still exists in part, but the stretch close to what was Milk Street is now Ashbury Close. The shot below from 2012 (copyright Google Street View) is of the Ashbury Close  - Faringdon Walk junction. The Bee Hive stood on the site of the bungalow on the corner.

Brewers Arms, 4 Atherton Street

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The Brewers Arms was situated at 4 Atherton Street, just off Cannon Street.

The pub certainly existed in 1869 when the licensee was Lucy Turtle, but it perhaps didn’t have the name the Brewers Arms at that time. It is believed that the pub took its name in the 1870s when Isaac Openshaw had the pub. Isaac was a brewer by trade though within a few years he had moved to the Farmers Arms on nearby Derby Street.

The Brewers Arms subsequently became a rare outlet for the Phoenix Brewery of Heywood but it was sold in the 1890s to T & R Wingfield’s. Their Silverwell Brewery situated on Nelson Square in premises which later became part of the Pack Horse Hotel.

Wingfield’s sold out to the Manchester Brewery Company in 1899 and the Brewers became a Walker and Homfray’s house when MBC was taken over in 1912.

The Brewers Arms closed in 1924 and the building was demolished to make way for an extension to the nearby Garfield Mill. The mill closed for the manufacture of textiles in 1960 and was used by a number of small firms until its demolition in the early seventies. Housing now stands on the site.

Cannon Street looking towards Deane Road. To the right is Chatham Gardens which was built on the site of Atherton Street in the 1970s. Before Garfield Mill’s expansion in 1924/25 there were two houses on the corner of Atherton Street: number 2 and number 4. The Brewers Arms was at number 4 close to the junction with Cannon Street on the far corner as we look.

Legs Of Man, 24 Churchgate

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The Legs Of Man can just about be seen in the distance in this 1950s view looking up Churchbank towards Churchgate.

The Legs Of Man public house stood at 24 Churchgate in between the Grand Theatre and the Theatre Royal in what for over a hundred years was the entertainment centre of  Bolton.

The pub dated back to the late-eighteenth century. Gordon Readyhough puts its establishment at 1790. [1] Certainly, it doesn’t appear on the 1779 list of Bolton alehouses [2], though it was certainly in existence by 1800. That was when it was first used as the headquarters of one of Lancashire’s earliest Masonic lodges, Anchor and Hope, which was based at the pub from 1800 to 1801 and from 1804 to 1844. [3] The St John’s lodge also met there from 1846 to 1856. [4]

The Legs Of Man was run by the Thorp family for much of the nineteenth century. William Thorp took over around 1818. A year earlier, when he married the widow Mary Cooper, his profession was described as a warehouseman. But by the time the Bolton Directory for 1818 was published just a few months later he was the landlord of the Legs Of Man. He ran the pub until his death at the age of 62 in 1845 and was succeeded by his widow, Mary who ran the pub with John Cooper, a son from her first marriage.

Mary died in 1856. John Cooper – described as a ‘brewer’ when he married Ann Butler in 1858 - remained at the pub for a few years after her death.

Cooper’s profession suggested that, like many other pubs in the town, the Legs Of Man brewed its own beer. But while it became a tied house owned by a brewery later in the eighteenth century it was actually owned by three breweries in succession: Magee’s, followed by Tong’s, and finally the Salford brewery of Groves and Whitnall. Pubs usually changed hands when breweries were taken over so it was perhaps an indication of the competition in the Churchgate area with seven pubs and two theatres in a stretch of around 200 yards.

But it could also be argued that competition of a different kind saw off the Legs Of Man. The advent of television, which reached the north-west in the early-fifties, affected theatre audiences as customers stayed at home and watched the new medium. The Legs was hit due to its reliance on passing custom before and after shows.

The Legs Of Man closed in March 1962. The Theatre Royal closed later that same year. The Grand Theatre became a bingo hall in 1961 but that failed and it closed in 1963. [5] All three buildings were demolished and Churchgate House was built in their place.

[1] Bolton Pubs, 1800 – 2000, by Gordon Readyhough. Published by Neil Richardson (2000).

[2] Pubs Of Bolton Town Centre, 1800 – 2000, by Gordon Readyhough. Published by Neil Richardson (1986).

[3] Lane’s Masonic Records. Accessed 11 March 2015.

[4] Lane’s Masonic Records. Accessed 11 March 2015. 

[5] Arthur Lloyd. Accessed 11 March 2015.

Baths Tavern, 42 Bridgeman Place

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The Baths Tavern stood at number 42 Bridgeman Place. This beerhouse dated back to the middle of the nineteenth century and it took its name from the nearby Bolton Baths which opened on Lower Bridgeman Street in 1845. The privately-owned bathing facility was believed to be the first public baths in the country since Roman times.

For many years the Baths Tavern was run by the same family. Thomas Lane was a cooper on Chancery Lane in the 1840s. By 1853 he was working at premises on Churchbank but he died in 1858. His wife, Jane Lane, was Welsh, born in Denbigh in 1817 and the couple had one daughter, Sarah, who was born in late-1839 or early-1840 and one son, William, born 1836.. Jane was listed as the licensee of the Baths Tavern in the 1860s though it is entirely feasible that she took on the pub along with her husband while he was still alive. By 1871 she was living at the pub alone but with a servant in residence.

Jane Lane died in 1881. At the time, her daughter Sarah was living with her at the pub as she entered the final stage of her life.  Some of Sarah’s younger children were with her while her husband, Reuben Bolton, a baker, lived in nearby Matthew Street South with the rest of the family.

After Jane’s death, Sarah Bolton took over the running of the pub. She was to remain there for the rest of her life. Reuben Bolton died in 1896 and by 1911 Sarah was at the pub with her four unmarried adult children. Three daughters worked at the pub while her son worked elsewhere as a patternmaker.

Sarah Bolton died in 1925. In 1927, the owners of the nearby Globe Hosiery Works, Hodgkinson and Gillibrand Ltd, wanted to rebuild and expand their factory. That meant buying seven properties, including the Baths Tavern, which were owned by the Earl Of Bradford. The pub closed down and the new Globe works was completed in 1929. The building remains on the site today.

 Bridgeman Place in September 2014 with Salop Street running off to the left (copyright Google Street View). The Baths Tavern was directly opposite the entrance to Salop Street.

Jolly Drummer, 16 Partridge Street

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The Jolly Drummer was situated on Partridge Street, off Moor Lane. Before the pub opened in the late-1850s Partridge Street was known as Green Street, but as there was another Green Street in the town centre its name was changed, partly in honour of an old-established pub, the Dog and Partridge which stood at the junction with Moor Lane. 

The Jolly Drummer dated back to at least the 1830s. Thomas Ainscow was the first recorded licensee and he appears in the 1836 Bolton Directory. The 1841 Census shows the 69-year-old Thomas as the landlord, assisted by his wife Susannah (56). Their son Robert was the brewer and two of Robert’s three sons also worked at the pub.

Thomas died in 1842 and Susannah Ainscow took over the business until her death in 1850. She was succeeded by Robert Ainscow but he sold the pub to James Parkinson in the late-1850s.

Towards the end of the nineteenth century the Jolly Drummer was in the hands of James Kenyon Davenport. Kenny Davenport was born in 1862 to James Davenport and his wife Catharine (nee Kenyon).  He knew Partridge Street well as the family lived at number 4 for a while in the 1870s.

Kenny moved to the Jolly Drummer after a stint working as a labourer for the pub’s owners, William Tong, whose brewery was just up Deane Road at Blackshaw Lane.  Perhaps Tong’s had an ulterior motive, because Kenny Davenport had just ended his career as a  footballer. He was signed by Bolton Wanderers in 1883 from local amateur side Gilnow Rangers and spent nine years playing for the Wanderers at their Pikes Lane ground located just off what is now Deane Road. He also spent part of his playing career arranging for players from Scotland and Wales to move to Bolton with the promise of jobs that he had fixed them up with. He was capped twice by England, becoming the first Bolton player to represent his country scoring two goals for the national team. After leaving Bolton, he spent a season with Southport Central before returning to Bolton to coach their reserve team.

Kenny Davenport was in the Bolton team that lined up to face Derby County on 3 September 1888 in the first round of games in the newly-created Football League. Also in the side was defender Bethel Robinson, at the time the landlord of the Crown and Cushion on Mealhouse Lane. 

Wanderers lost 6-3 in that opening-day fixture. Kenny Davenport scored twice, the first on just two minutes when he sprang the Derby offside trap to put his side a goal up. But in 2013, researchers discovered that Davenport’s goal was the first to be scored in league football.  It had previously been thought that the first goal was an own-goal scored by Gershom Cox for Wolves against Aston Villa, but Villa’s game kicked off at 3.50. Bolton’s game kicked off at 3.45pm. [1]

So after 125 years the name of Kenny Davenport, arguably Bolton’s first star player and Nat Lofthouse of his day, was back in the papers. [2]

He died in 1908 and the Jolly Drummer was taken over by his widow, Emma, who ran the pub with her brother, John Eves.

The Jolly Drummer closed in 1912 and was used for many years as a lodging house. It was demolished in 1969 and the fire station was built on the site. It opened in 1971.

[1] When Saturday Comes. Accessed 9 March 2015. 

[2] More on Kenny Davenport, including links to other media stories on his first league goal can be accessed via his Wikipedia page. 

The image on top of the paibelow isn't the best picture to illustrate the Jolly Drummer. It’s actually a 1969 picture of the Dog and Partridge on Moor Lane but Partridge Street can be seen in the background. The former Jolly Drummer building can just about be seen with its windows boarded up, next to the white-painted building. (Image copyright Bolton Council). 

Below that is an image of Bolton fire station taken in September 2014. The entrance to the fire station was formed from the entrance to Partridge Street and the Jolly Drummer would have been straight ahead on the right-hand side in the distance. (Image copyright Google Street View). 

Merehall Inn, 2-4 Lyon Street

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The Merehall Inn (sometimes spelt Mere Hall – two words) was situated at 2-4 Lyon Street, just on the corner of Vernon Street and directly opposite the Caledonia Inn with Mossfield Mill on the other side of Vernon Street.   The took its name from nearby Mere Hall although Mere Hall Street was the next street along from Lyon Street.

The first record we have of the pub is in the 1871 Bolton Directory when it was being run by James Hodgkinson and his wife Martha (nee Rostron). The premises were initially a corner shop, but members of Martha’s family had run pubs and it seems the Hodgkinsons hit upon the idea of opening up their shop as a beerhouse.

The 1871 Census describes James as a ‘grocer and beerseller’. But owning a pub has never been an easy business to be in and by 1881 he was working in a foundry and living in nearby Faraday Street. The pub was then bought by George Walker of the Park View brewery on Spa Road.

A similar fate befell a later licensee, Major Mangnall. Despite sounding like a military man, Major Gerrard Mangnall was actually christened thus. He was born in Cheshire in 1862 and he was a carter in Ainscow Street, the next street to Lyon Street as you go down Vernon  Street (Ainscow Street no longer insists though, oddly, Back Ainscow Street has survived; it’s the cobbled street leading from Vernon Street to the Gaskell Primary School football pitch).

By 1894, Major Mangnall and his wife Margaret were running the Merehall Inn, but within five years he was back in Ainscow Street and working as a labourer. He eventually went back to being a carter and was then a gardener until he retired. He died in 1934.

The Warburton family appear to have had more success. They were in charge at the Merehall Inn for over 20 years with James Warburton succeeding his late father John after being demobbed from active service following the First World War.

The Merehall closed in 1933. It was owned by the Liverpool company Walker Cain Ltd who came by the pub as part of their takeover of Leigh brewer, George Shaw and Son. Walker’s decided to transfer the full licenses of the Old Robin Hood on Lever Street, the Three Tuns on Chapel Street, and the Arrowsmith Arms on Mill Street, to three other pubs: the Vulcan on Junction Road, the Greyhound on Manchester Road and the Nightingale on Lever Street. But before the licensing authorities allowed the deal to be done they insisted that Walker’s surrendered three beerhouse licenses, as well. The Merehall was one of the unlucky pubs.

The building was demolished in the sixties along with the rest of Lyon Street, Merehall Street and Ainscow Street. New housing stands on the site.

The approximate site of Lyon Street shown in 2012 (copyright Google Street View). The Merehall Inn was on the right-hand corner at the junction with Vernon Street.